Partnership Formed to Support 'National Platforms'

The Global Coffee Platform (GCP) and Rainforest Alliance (RA) have signed a partnership agreement for the next five years to support ‘National Platforms’ in coffee producing countries, as well as to identify opportunities at the country level and tackle local priorities.

The announcement was made in November during the Global Coffee Sustainability Conference 2018 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Han de Groot, c.e.o. of the Rainforest Alliance, and Annette Pensel, executive director of GCP, signed the partnership agreement, a milestone for coffee sustainability.

In a statement released at the conference Rainforest Alliances executives said the conference was “the perfect venue to convey this key message to the whole coffee sector: if we work together, we will significantly contribute to making coffee the first sustainable commodity in the world.”

The partnership agreement seeks to intensify their joint projects to benefit coffee farming families around the globe. GCP tackles the biggest issues relevant to their business, share the costs, make smarter investments, and achieve greater impact on farmer livelihoods.

According to Rogier Eijkens, GCP director of programs: “We need to capitalize on each other’s strengths. GCP and [RA] believe that aligning at global and national levels will set a new bar in the way we should work together on coffee sustainability.”

Action alliance

Based on findings and recommendations from a learning assessment, the organizations reviewed their current partnership and high-level strategic exchange. As a conclusion, GCP and RA decided to engage in a broad and long-term partnership to capitalize on each other’s strengths and previous collaboration experiences.

The agreement pursues the consolidation of National Coffee Platforms and their secretariat as facilitators of multi-stakeholder dialogues in different coffee producing countries. At a global scale, RA and GCP will also organize regular strategic sessions to promote exchange and learning between platforms in producing countries. Both organizations will also identify new opportunities at the country level and support collective member initiatives among coffee stakeholders based on local priorities.

The agreement is effective January 1. The expectation is that by 2024, the collective work from the Rainforest Alliance and GCP’s 150+ members will have made key contributions toward a more sustainable coffee sector.